My Peeps

Easter weekend had a theme. My sister Rose, brother-in-law, niece, and her boyfriend (they're 17) visited on Easter weekend and the niece had to see the baby chicks available for purchase at Dickey Bub's, so we went, and to our surprise some of the chicks had been dyed for Easter. A young employee held a chick so I could get a closeup. And my relatives love fossil-hunting and while out digging around my sister found a piece of Peep-shaped sandstone.

Not only this but today at Wal-Mart, chief among the leftover, 50-percent-off candy was rows and rows of multicolored marshmallow Peeps. One year I microwaved a Peep to see what would happen. It swells and grows bigger and bigger, about quadrupling in size, and then begins to burn.

The Household Improvement Project, Part 2

To dress for refinishing I picked out of my rag bag an oversized fleece jacket in red and black buffalo plaid, and worn brown stretch-corduroy pants with burn holes from building fires. Good time of year to work: not too cold. Garage has no electricity; all must be done by daylight. Here you see my work setup, which I love, and  the carefully stripped and sanded drawer, and also the first coat of varnish (color: "natural") on the cabinet door. Yes, I wear a respirator when I scrape and sand and varnish, and read the instructions too. And while I breathe, I meditate. Seven coats of stripper (over nine days) taught me patience. I wasn't however willing to strip down into the (cheap, thin but genuine) wood to gouge the very last of the paint traces out of there. So it's gonna show the grain. It's gonna show a history. I could buy and use a darker varnish. Don't want to spend any more money. And better honest imperfection than a lying, cheating coverup for a bad case of pride. I'm pleased to be doing this, enjoying spring inspiration, no matter how it turns out. "Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections," said Vilfredo Pareto.

Went to Dickey Bub's hardware and found there was one more hurdle: replacing the hinges. Mr. D. there hunted high and low but the fact is the hinges I brought him were so elderly that today's hinges -- all of them -- are drilled completely differently. To make any new hinges fit I will have to drill new holes into the cabinet frame. I'll show you how that turns out when I do it.

Pick Up Some Chicks

Every year the hardware store carries baby chicks, not for Easter (that's four weeks away) but for people to buy, raise, and get eggs from, and finally eat. That's just a fact. It's also a fact that a zinc tub full of squeaking baby chicks, all looking like they're made of yellow plush, melts my heart. $1.35 each....

First Hummingbird of 2009

This morning at eight, sittin on the porch drinkin tea, I hear a loud luscious buzzing that makes me look up at my feeder (new, glass and copper, real classy, from Dickey Bub's) is the first hummer of 2009. Just on time, too. In 2007 they also appeared on April 24. I remembered that and hung my nectar feeders last week.

This year with a tripod I may get some nice photos to share with yall.

Sprang Chickens

Ready to buy? $2.19 apiece at Dickey Bub's. They sell them every spring, for one week. Well fed and warm under a big light they were peeping like it's goin out of style. The initials stand for chicken breeds: RIR = Rhode Island Red; BO = Buff Orpington; RSL = Red Sex Link; click on the link if you think I'm funnin' you. Also called Red Stars. What is it in my brain always makes me so happy to see baby birds, fawns, kittens -- any kind of babies? "Heavy Breed" means they're good for both eggs and meat.

Dickey Bub Farm & Home

Birdseed and suet is one-third cheaper at Dickey Bub's, a medium-large hardware store with three locations: Union, Potosi, and Eureka, MO. They sell the Dickey brand of work clothes for men and women, along with tools, seeds, rock salt, John Deere riding mowers & that. When they opened I was scared to go in there. It was too "man." My haircutter tole me she was almost brave enough to go in there until she heard their sound system blasting a song about tequila.

Several score of fat and lazy wild birds depend on me for seed and suet, and needing a way to cut the cost, I finally sidled into the Dickey Bub's, and wandered in a daze (what IS that metal thing?) until I found the pallets of 35-lb. bags of Tru-Value mixed birdseed. I was used to backing my car up to a loading dock and they'd put the bags in the trunk for me. But at the Dickey Bub's there were no clerks to be seen, nor loading docks, nor shopping carts -- men don't use em, I guess --and I had to hoist the sack over my shoulder and carry it if I dint want to look like a helpless female gettin weak and whiny in her change of life.

It's got easier to go in there and easier to carry the bags, and I am so pleased with myself. Plus, the birds and I both eat better. Nowhere else around here sells 100 percent wool socks, which stay warm when they're wet, a necessity: it's not only men who get shin-deep in creeks or muck and that, and then have a ways to go to get home.